I have never been so grateful to see a washing machine in my life. But I am getting ahead of myself.

The journey to Posedarje had started with such promise. My partner and I had flown into Zadar, picked up our hire car, and felt terribly continental cruising down the coastal road with the windows down and some questionable Croatian pop on the radio. We had allowed ourselves a little smug moment. Look at us, we thought, so organised, so relaxed, so ready for our Dalmatian escape.

Then I spilt an entire bottle of fizzy water across my lap at a petrol station just outside Benkovac.

Not a graceful trickle, either. A full, explosive, carbonated drenching that left me looking as though I had suffered a deeply localised cloudburst. My partner found this hilarious, naturally, and spent the next twenty minutes of the drive offering helpful commentary about tide times and whether I needed a wetsuit for the pool. I sat there in my sodden linen trousers, windows up to avoid chilling my already compromised dignity, watching the Velebit mountains rise in the distance and wondering if this was some kind of karmic punishment for being smug.

By the time we reached the property, I was in that particular state of sticky discomfort that only wet fabric and Mediterranean heat can produce. The satnav had done its best to confuse us with a series of increasingly narrow lanes, each one more enthusiastically rustic than the last. We bumped along past stone houses with their shutters closed against the afternoon sun, the scent of pine and sea salt drifting through the vents, until finally we spotted the terrace and the glint of a pool beyond.

I practically fell out of the car.

The first thing that struck me was the quiet. Not silence exactly, but that particular hush of a place where the loudest sound is the cicadas and the distant clink of someone's late lunch. The house sat there, all creamy stone and terracotta, with grape vines scrambling over a pergola and lavender bushes humming with bees. My wet trousers suddenly felt like a very minor concern.

My partner, ever practical, was already investigating the outdoor kitchen with the intensity of someone planning a military campaign. I hobbled after them, squelching slightly, and found myself on a terrace that looked straight out towards the Novigrad Sea. The water lay there, impossibly blue and still, with the mountains rising behind it in layers of grey and green. I forgot about my trousers entirely. For about four seconds. Then the breeze reminded me.

The pool, when I finally reached it, was one of those perfect rectangles of turquoise that makes you want to weep with relief. I did not weep. I did, however, execute what I can only describe as an urgent and slightly desperate entry that would have scored poorly at any diving competition. The water was that perfect temperature, cool enough to shock, warm enough to stay in for hours. I floated there, looking up at the clear sky, and felt the last of my petrol-station trauma beginning to dissolve.

Later, once I had located the washing machine and begun the great trouser rehabilitation of 2024, I explored properly. The kitchen opened onto that terrace so you could cook with the doors flung wide, the bedrooms were simple and cool with wooden shutters, and everywhere there was that sense of a house designed for outdoor living. We ate figs from a neighbour's tree, drank wine that cost less than a London coffee, and watched the light change over the water until the mountains turned purple in the dusk.

That first evening, dry at last and slightly sun-drunk, I sat on the terrace and listened to the evening sounds. Somewhere a dog barked, a boat engine coughed into life, and the cicadas carried on their endless conversation. My partner raised a glass to me, to us, to the trousers that were even now tumbling back to respectability.

"Same time next year?" they asked.

I looked at the darkening sea, at the vines overhead, at the pool waiting for morning.

"Bring more water bottles," I said. "But yes. Absolutely yes."